NCJ Number
197292
Journal
American Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 26 Issue: 2 Dated: Spring 2002 Pages: 219-233
Date Published
2002
Length
15 pages
Annotation
In this article, upper-level college and graduate students were surveyed to determine how Leventhal’s Principles of Procedural Justice affected support for drug-testing policies.
Abstract
Surveying 279 upper-level college and graduate students in order to test how Leventhal’s Principles of Procedural Justice impacted students’ support for drug-testing policies is the focus of this journal article. After arguing that policies adopted in the spirit of cooperation and agreement tend to lead to better support, the authors describe the drug-testing practices of public organizations and the legal ramifications of conducting drug testing. Following a brief discussion of the ideas of several social exchange theorists on principles of justice and equity theory, this article details Leventhal’s Principles of Procedural Justice that maintain that employees tend to judge the fairness of polices in terms of the means used to achieve the ends. Testing the perceived level of fairness of drug-testing policies that follow the Principles of Procedural Justice, the authors surveyed college students at a mid-Atlantic religious urban university. Results from the 279 usable surveys were assessed using univariate analysis. The authors found that a majority of survey respondents rated violations of Leventhal’s principles as “unfair” or “very unfair,” supporting earlier work in this area. This article concludes that this research demonstrates that future employees will support employers’ drug-testing policies as long as the guidelines are deemed fair. Tables, references